Page 55 of Violent Delights

He doesn’t say a word, but reaches for his own coffee mug, taking his sweet time sipping from it. This is awkward for him, and he doesn’t know how to react.

“This was my grandparents’ house,” he says after a few more moments of uncomfortable silence have passed between us. “I used to live here with them, partly grew up here. It feels more like home to me than any other place.”

He pauses, waiting for me to lift my chin to look at him. Our eyes meet across the table, our gazes speaking silently to one another. His face speaks of concern and empathy. Even if he’s only faking it to make me feel better, he’s doing a really good job at it.

“Maybe that’s why I don’t feel lonely,” he adds, his words heavy with meaning. “Despite the vast and empty halls. Every room echoes voices from the past. It’s hard to feel alone among them.”

I’m struck by how beautiful his words are, just like the man who spoke them. It’s hard to imagine that this is the same man who enslaved me, the same man who locked me up, who whips and spanks me, and who fucks me like a savage.

“Your grandparents?” I ask. “You lived here with your grandparents?”

He nods. “Yes, they moved to Florida and gave this house to me.”

“What about your parents?” I want to know.

His face changes, and now he’s the one who’s avoiding my eyes.

“They’re gone,” he says. “Not much to say about them.”

“I’m sorry, I-”

“Don’t worry, it happened a long time ago. I was still a kid,” he says. “It doesn’t bother me.”

He takes a big bite of his toast and looks at me squarely, burying any hint of sadness that might have been there a second before.

“What about your parents?” he asks.

I’m confused at his question. He has never asked me anything personal, and I didn’t expect him to, especially after I found out that he thinks I’m just a whore he bought for his pleasure.

“They‘re alive,” I reply. “I think.”

He chuckles. “You think?”

“Well, the sperm donor who’s supposed to be my father did nothing but drink and hit me and my mother until she finally had the guts to kick him out when I was nine,” I tell him. “And my mother married another asshole shortly after that and had another kid with him. He’s not as bad as my father used to be, but he hates me and I hate him. They are still up in Maine, we barely talk.”

“So you’re not from here?”

I shake my head. “No, I moved here for a job.”

He turns to me, drawing in his eyebrows as his casts me a skeptical look.

Damn, that was stupid. Who would move to a different state just to become a whore?

“Er, not this job,” I correct myself. “I mean, it-”

“I don’t need to know,” he interrupts me. “But I’m sorry to hear about your family.”

Now he’s the one trying to console me just like I did for him before.

We continue to eat in silence for a few moments. There’s so much more I want to know about him. There was such a deep sadness behind his words when he talked about this house and how its halls are filled with voices from the past. I wonder if those voices also echo fights and yelling, as they would in my family’s home.

“How did your parents die?” I dare to ask, certain that he will deny me a response.

“Car accident,” he says. “My father was wasted and drove their car into a ravine. Killed them both, but luckily no one else was hurt. I was with my grandparents at the time.”

“Fuck,” I gasp, unable to come up with a better remark.

“Amen to that,” he says. “Guess we both have that in common, fucked-up fathers.”

He casts me a weird look, questioning, searching, as if he was trying to find something else hidden behind my exterior.

“I guess so,” I say, raising my coffee mug to him in a toast.

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